Entries in A-Rod
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I was invited to take part in a discussion about Alex Rodriguez and the use of performance-enhancing drugs (specifically HGH — Human Growth Hormone) in sports on HuffPost Live with host Mike Sacks Friday afternoon.

I certainly didn't expect to write another piece about Alex Rodriguez this week. Baseball (and sports) fans are surely tired of hearing about A-Rod and steroids. And if I don't write another word about PEDs this season, it would not break my heart.

But the latest development in A-Rod's feud with the New York Yankees over whether or not he's injured and how that could affect the Yanks' ability to collect insurance on his $28 million salary for this season has turned this disagreement from drama into comedy.

With Rodriguez's approval, Dr. Michael Gross of the Hackensack Medical Center went on WFAN to say he didn't think A-Rod was injured. That's quite a different opinion than the strained quadriceps Yankees team doctors diagnosed, an injury that would keep him out seven to 10 days.

However, as I write in my latest post for The Outside Corner, it turns out that Gross didn't exactly have the most informed opinion when it came to A-Rod's injury.

However, Dr. Gross eventually admitted that he didn't examine Rodriguez. He looked at the MRI results that prompted the Yankees to keep him on the disabled list. But his diagnosis — if that's even what to call it — was based Rodriguez saying he felt fit to play. A-Rod knows his body, Gross reasoned. So if he says he can play, he can probably play.

With that, palms smacked foreheads and covered faces throughout the New York media and across the internet.

Gross is obviously a very qualified physician, given that he is the chief of orthopedics at a prominent research and teaching hospital in the New York metropolitan area. Yet it almost appears as if Gross' consultation with A-Rod consisted of holding up a doll and asking him to point to where it doesn't hurt.

While MLB didn't specifically detail what Braun had done to draw what amounts to a 65-game penalty, it's easy to presume that he was suspended for receiving performance-enhancing drugs from the Biogenesis clinic in Miami. Baseball is currently investigating Biogenesis' involvement with up to 25 players. Braun and New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez are the most prominent players on that list.

So if Braun was suspended and didn't even fight the penalty after seeing what kind of evidence MLB had on him, what sort of punishment awaits Rodriguez? As I write in my latest post for The Outside Corner, we may be looking at the last days of A-Rod as a major league ballplayer.

Obviously, we don't know what MLB has on Rodriguez, but his involvement with PEDs could extend far beyond Biogenesis. Couldn't that be a reasonable assumption, given that A-Rod has already admitted to taking steroids in 2009? What are the chances that he stopped using PEDs in 2003, as he'd prefer us to believe?

Rodriguez is going to be suspended. It's not a question of whether or not he'll be penalized, but when that punishment will come. Braun's suspension almost entirely assures such an outcome. His name is going to be tarnished, more than it already has. He's not going to be considered one of baseball's all-time greats, if he hasn't already lost that status.

All along, I've been skeptical about how much evidence MLB had on the players listed in the Biogenesis documents. To me, this seemed more about public relations than ridding the sport of steroids. But Braun's suspension is an indication that baseball has some hard proof on these players and is carrying out its crusade against them.